Shebbear’s heritage preserved online with new community website

Discover the Devil’s Stone, stories from the past and much more with a new community website launched by the Shebbear History Project.

Dedicated to the heritage of the parish, the online resource at www.shebbearvillage.co.uk is growing to include a wealth of village history covering people, places and local folklore.

The community-led Shebbear History Project was originally conceived during the dark days of the Covid-19 lockdown when records relating to the village started to be gathered in both paper and digital form.

The intention was to create an online community heritage resource for current and former residents of the parish which has been achieved with the launch of the website.

Initially, a limited selection of material will be available but new items will be continually added to the site.

It is also hoped to find a space to safely store and display a collection of tangible archives relating to Shebbear which will have regular open access for the local community.

The site contains information on notable locations such as the Devil’s Stone Inn, the various premises of Shebbear Post Office over the years, St Michael’s Church, local businesses and of course the Devil’s Stone itself.

This enigmatic 500-plus kilo stone – or Devil’s Boulder as it is also known – is not indigenous to the region and no one quite knows for sure when the tradition of local bellringers turning the stone on November 5 came into being.

The turning is to flush the Devil out from his possible hiding place under the stone and failure to do so puts next year’s crops in jeopardy.

Another part of the lore suggests the Devil was escaping from Northlew, where he was in danger of catching his death of cold and to hasten his progress, he dropped the stone in Shebbear. 

The Shebbear History Project would like to thank Councillor James Morrish, sitting Devon county councillor, for supporting the project via the Locality Budget Funding Grant, which made creation of the website possible.

It is hoped people will be inspired to step forward with donations of memories, photographs, documents, or anything that represents the shared history of Shebbear. Anyone who can volunteer some time to support the work of the Project is also very welcome.

Visit the Shebbear History Project website at https://www.shebbearvillage.co.uk